1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote control system for remotely controlling, for example, a television receiver and its peripheral devices such as a video tape recorder (VTR), a digital versatile disc (DVD) player, and an audio amplifier (AMP), and to a presetting method for a remote commander.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has already been proposed a remote commander for remotely controlling, for example, a television receiver and its peripheral devices such as a video tape recorder, a DVD player, and an audio amplifier.
Television receivers, video tape recorders, DVD players, and audio amplifiers from different manufacturers generally have different remote control codes used for remote control, and different models of such devices generally have different remote control codes.
As such, there has already been proposed a remote commander that is adapted to remotely control different manufacturers' and different models of devices, such as television receivers, video tape recorders, DVD players, and audio amplifiers. Such a remote commander includes within itself a storage device, such as a ROM, for storing remote control codes for each model of devices from each manufacturer, and in this storage device are stored beforehand remote control codes corresponding to each model of devices, such as television receivers, video tape recorders, DVD players, audio amplifiers, from each manufacturer (Manufacturer A, Manufacturer B, Manufacturer C, etc.). When performing remote control, a preset key, a select key, etc., are used to cause remote control codes corresponding to the model of the device that is to be manipulated to be read from the aforementioned storage device, and the read codes are used as remote control codes for remote control.
In addition, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 4-267696 (as referred to Patent Document 1 hereinafter) discloses a technique of storing remote control codes defined independently for different models of devices (e.g., television receivers) from different manufacturers beforehand in a memory provided within a main body of a VTR. In this exemplary related art technique, a mode switch key, an item select key, a set key, an execute key, and a display section each provided on the main body of the VTR are used to cause remote control codes corresponding to a device to be manipulated or the manufacturer of the device to be read from the memory, and the read remote control codes are transferred from the main body of the VTR to a remote commander via a wire.